The "Friend Zone"

[KoalaFace]

I'm sick of hearing about it.

As if enjoying a man's company and wanting to be their friend but not wanting to have sex with them is some kind of punishment.

Yup. Because if men are nice to women then we should at least fuck them by way of showing our gratitude.

It's so shitty. And I hate the whole concept that women are "keeping them around for their ego" or "leading them on".

Can't they just like them as people?

Apparently not. Women aren't people, silly...

Have you heard about the shooting in California? There's another thread in FWR. It's the whole 'nice guy' thing writ large, and taken to bloody extremes. :(

It's because men feel entitled to our bodies. It's part of the pornification of society. Women aren't there to have friendships with, and if they do want to be friends, it's because they want to drain men and then either fuck them or leave.

I have seen so many memes on social media about women who accept drinks bought for them and then don't let you fuck them, or women who are friendly, but it's all a ruse, because they won't let you fuck them and on and on. It's horrible, it's degrading to both men and women and, if I'm honest, it makes me quite worried for the future.

Oh Capt you're right

WhentheRed

I loved that! Thank you so much!

I've seen that on here before (maybe form you!) but had to watch it again. It's awesome.

You notice there's no female equivalent of the friend zone.

Because we're not entitled to have sex with men who aren't interested in having sex with us.

Of course Basil.

That's because sex is something men do to ladies; we don't actually want it. I only allow DH to do it on his birthday, and he has to tug my nightie down after he's finished.

Actually, I think there is kind of an equivalent.. not quite in the whiny "hot people don't fuck me" way. But a lot of young girls who don't perform femininity, or are maybe quite sporty and tend to hang out with the boys will talk about the problem of being seen as just "one of the guys".

But, it doesn't seem to go as far as whining that the hot guys won't fuck them because they've "put in the hours", iyswim.

They problem with "friend zone" guys is that don't actually respect the women they are "friends" with, they aren't really their friends..They're just looking for an 'in' to their friend's pants.

I had a bad experience with a male friend which has made me cynical I'm afraid. left a bitter taste in my mouth.

John and I worked together for 3 years, we had the best laughs, met ( with others) for after work drinks on friday, went to some shows, he came to my home, ( I was married) OH liked him a lot.

OH and I split up. I got a new job, I was living in temporary accommodation for a few months in a different city, John came to stay for a few days. I cooked, we had some wine, laughs. Next morning I awoke to find him sitting on the sofa, bag packed ready to go. I couldn't work out what was wrong.
He told me that he was expecting sex. Was the only reason he had come to visit. He felt let down and disappointed.

I was gutted. I had never seen our relationship in those terms. I cared for him, he was a mate. I know I never deliberately flirted with him, I know that to my core. I did laugh like a donkey at his jokes and funny ways, and we shared a lot in common but I didn't lead him on.

I was truly shocked. He left, and I have never seen him since. Left me with a very bad taste in my mouth and I have had my guard up ever since.

beating that's so crap I'm not surprised it's left a bitter taste. It's crazy that all it takes for some men to 'expect' sex is for us to be friendly.

Serves us right for walking around being all female I guess.

Really I totally agree about the 'one of the guys thing' it can be disappointing to not have your attraction reciprocated but women don't seem to have the same "expectation".

beating you're not alone there.

Apparently we women 'send signals' which means that we want more then friendship, and that, when we don't follow this through by allowing the entitled male to fuck us we aren't playing fair.

We should then end up as lonely old maids with horrible husbands/partners, because the 'nice man' wasn't our sexual cup of tea, or whatever.

I have, on a couple of occasions felt horribly pressured into having sex with people I really only thought of as pals, because the males in question would start getting all huffy. I am not attractive at all, it's not like I am some great 'conquest' so I don't get it. It's a long way from rape, but it's not entirely consensual either, iyswim?

Someone on here recently posted an interesting article written by some guy entitled "So You Turned Us Nice Guys Down Years Ago But Now You're Crawling Back With Some Loser's Baby In Your Arms And You Expect Us To Still Want You, You Whore" (Ok that may be paraphrased somewhat, but that was the essence of the piece.) It was vile.

I knew a guy who constantly referred to himself as a "nice guy." He actually held some of the most repellently misogynistic views I've come across and was borderline abusive to his wife. Yet still it was, "oh and cos I'm such a fucking nice guy I never say anything to her," etc...

Euuuw spare me the nice guy. Any man who has to tell you he's a nice guy, is almost certainly a creep of the lowest order.

Beating that's so horrible. It makes you look back at the friendship and wonder if everything you ever experienced as friends was just nothing - just all a lie because he never really found me funny, interesting, witty, good company, he just saw me as a hole for his dick. That I was a person in my own right, like the men he's friends with who he wouldn't expect sex with, wasn't actually something he believed about me.

It's one of the reasons I don't have male friends anymore. I mean I have men in my life with whom I'm friendly; neighbours, friends' husbands, colleagues etc., but I reserve judgement as to whether they are friends because until I know for sure that they consider me as human as they are, I'm not going to entertain that shit.

I am glad that you understand. I don't have male friends anymore- except one and he is gay, because I don't feel I can trust their true motives.

I wish I had been as angry with John at the time as he was with me. I was too stunned to really understand, and did a lot of self examination afterwards.
John felt that I hadn't kept my side of the "bargain". He had come to give me some company when I was in a new city and a new job feeling a bit lonely. Apparently for that I should have given him sex.

I am quite a chatty lively person, I smile and laugh a lot, but I am like this to everyone I meet, men and women, neighbours, shop assistants. I like to make people smile. It takes the edge off what can be a dreary life sometimes.

Apparently this is unfair to men as this is giving out a signal that I want sex.

Very sad.

What a betrayal beatingwings - pretendning to be your supportive friend and then just left because you couldn't read his mind...!

Perhaps it's like this: Men like John live in their own world that is completely centered around them so they don't even understand that they have to actually ask and express what they want. And they're so entitled so they just assume women will have sex with them.

Thanks Briar. Some consolation that John ended up in a shitty place himself. He slept with a woman he didn't care for " doing her a favour because she was fat and ugly" - I heard though a friend. Ended up fathering a child and felt forced to do the right thing becase of his catholic upbringing.

I feel very sorry for his wife- more than likelty divorced by now.

Makes me wonder why I chose him as a friend.

Strange place that I worked too- I was the only woman in a Department of 150 men.

You know what really pisses me off? It's this constant insistence that we're all equal now, that men and women can be friends, that there's no need for women to have a chip on their shoulders about males, friendship etc., because all that sexism is in the past and we're all just one of the lads and we should get on with it and just be ourselves and natural and normal.

And when we buy that, we do get on with it and we're ourselves and chatty and smiley and natural and normal, we're accused of sending out signals that we want sex and putting men in the friend zone because of course if we're smiley and chatty we must want sex, not friendship.

The hypocrisy and self-serving shit of it pisses me off.

Actually it sounds like you're much better off without the Johns in your life beatingwings, he sounds like a Class A nobber. If you'd stayed married (so he'd respected the ownership of your vagina by another man) you'd never have known what a prick he was as you would probably have been overlooking and minimising the signals he may have been giving that he was in fact a prick (as we all do before awareness caused by damned feminism forces us to notice these signals). You've been saved years of denial about him.

You are right- my own mother said of my abusive ex husband "well at least he's not a gambler". As if that made him a good catch.